Posts Tagged ‘shooting’

Dr. Osnat Levtzion Korach, the general manager of Hadassah Hospital Mount Scopus just announced that two of the critically wounded people, a policeman and a 60-year-old woman, died of their wounds following the terror attack this morning.

The two were brought in, in critical condition, after being shot by the terrorist.

There was a terror attack that began at Ammunition Hill in Jerusalem, near the train stop, at 10:12 AM on Sunday morning.

The terrorist, driving in his car opened fire at the Jerusalem light rail train, wounding one woman critically. He then drove further ahead towards the Shimon Hatzadik train stop, and opened fire at a car on the road, wounding another woman.

The terrorist then drove into the Shimon Hatzadik neighborhood (Sheikh Jarrah) and got out of his car. He opened fire at the Yassam police team who were chasing him.

United Hatzalah volunteers from the Jerusalem chapter are currently treating injured and wounded individuals at a light rail station following the attack.

Yossi Amar, a volunteer medic with United Hatzalah who arrived first at the scene relayed: “When I arrived at the scene I found an unconscious woman. Together with other volunteers of the ambucycle unit of United Hatzalah we provided her with first aid treatment at the scene. We did not find any other people who sustained physical injuries. We then began treating people in the area for shock.”

On Wednesday, Hagai Segal, editor of the right-leaning Makor Rishon, directed at the National Religious public, revealed on Twitter the Friday cover page of his newspaper’s Shabbat supplement Dyokan (Portrait) dedicated to their pick of Man of the Year 5776, with a flattering image of Sgt. Elor Azaria, the medic whose shot that killed a terrorist on the ground at a Hebron check post last Purim Day also appears to have killed a long-held belief that the IDF’s values and priorities were synonymous with those of the Jewish nation in Israel.

“The court will rule on the severity of his action,” says the subheadline on the same cover, “but there’s no doubt that the single bullet he shot at the terrorist ignited the stormiest debate in Israel’s society this year.”

Many readers confuse the meaning of a publication’s Man of the Year pick with an endorsement, even praise of his actions. Segal’s team made certain to convey that they picked Azaria not because they necessarily agree with his shooting of an already “neutralized” terrorist, but because of his strong influence on Israelis — the majority of whom rebelled publicly and in no uncertain terms against a confused military and political leadership that actually considered charging an IDF soldier with murder of an Arab terrorist who had already stabbed another soldier in the neck.

The military prosecution finally gave in to the tide of public rage and settled for a manslaughter indictment, which did not make it or the man at the helm of the defense apparatus, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon (Likud), more popular in the least. In the end, Ya’alon was ousted, replaced by Avigdor Liberman (Yisrael Beiteinu), allowing Prime Minister Netanyahu to kill two birds with one convenient stone, getting rid of an increasingly unpopular (and preachy) defense minister, and adding a crucial coalition partner to give him a safer edge in the Knesset.

Despite the fact that Israelis were preoccupied with the passing of the late Shimon Peres this week, the Segal tweet received its share of boos and applause, much of it revolving around the difference between picking the MOY because he was influential vs. being praiseworthy.

Former Peace Now chief Yariv Oppenheimer tweeted back that he’d pick Hagai Klein, the man who was shot by an Arab terrorist gunman at the Sarona Market in Tel Aviv, and despite his injury managed to tackle the shooter with his bare hands. Obviously, a brave man worthy of a medal, but few Israelis would recognize his name without Googling it.

There was one tweet suggesting the man of the year award should be given to the B’Tselem cameraman who captured the shooting — which makes sense in a big bang theory kind of way.

Meretz Chairwoman MK Zehava Galon attacked the choice on it’s merit: “Enough already,” she wrote. “Azaria didn’t ignite a debate. He shot the head of a neutralized terrorist.” She then rebuked Segal’s choice, saying that “choosing him as man of the year sends a clear message to anyone who understands it.” Meaning, obviously, that Azaria wasn’t only influential, he was also right in the eyes of many Israelis, and that in itself is dangerous.

It so happens that another Israeli newspaper, Ma’ariv, which hovers around the center-right political zone, on Friday published a column by journalist Ben Kaspit who also picked Azaria as his choice for man of the year. “One shot from Elor Azaria, a simple soldier from the Kfir Brigade, woke up all the sleeping demons in Israel’s society,” Kaspit wrote, adding, “Like it or not, Elor Aazaria was the most influential man of the year 5776.”

We will be revealing our choice for Man of the Year Saturday night. Here’s a hint: she’s not a man. Unless, of course we’ll have one of those editorial brawls today and come up with someone else. Stay tuned.

The would-be assassin of the late U.S. President Ronald Reagan was freed Saturday from a Washington D.C. psychiatric hospital.

John Hinckley, 61, was committed to long-term psychiatric hospitalization 35 years ago after attempting to murder the president. He shot and critically injured President Reagan but was found not guilty by reason of insanity. He also seriously wounded Press Secretary James Brady, who was left paralyzed for the rest of his life, 33 years later.

Two other men at the scene were also wounded: Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy – who is now a police chief in Illinois – and DC Police Officer Thomas Delahanty, who, according to Fox News, retired after the attack on disability.

Hinckley fired six shots in the attack, which took place outside a Washington D.C. hotel on March 30, 1981.

He was released from St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in accordance with a decision by a federal judge in July who said he no longer poses a danger to himself or the public. The judge ruled that Hinckley has “no signs of psychotic symptoms, delusional thinking or any violent tendencies.”

He was brought by private car to live with his elderly mother in Williamsburg, Virginia.

A young resident of Samaria was indicted on Sunday for endangering lives on a traffic lane when he shot an air gun at an Arab taxi on Aug. 24, 2016. The shot smashed the car’s rear window but no one was hurt. The police and Shabak announcement described the suspect, Moshe Yinon Oren, 18, a resident of Ronen Hilltop, which Police referred to as Arusi Hilltop (the settlement is named after Ronen Arusi, who established it), as a “rightwing extremist” who was risking human lives.

A search in Oren’s home yielded an air gun that was used in the even described in the indictment, an all-terrain vehicle (ATV) which he is accused of driving during the event, an empty magazine for plastic bullets caliber 5.56, gas canisters, a sling, and a metal box containing 37 anti-vehicle spikes.

The Police and Shabak announcement also says Oren has confessed to the charges and reenacted the event: he arrived on his ATV at Route 60 near the main Yitzhar junction, where police say he shot his air gun at the Arab taxi and fled the scene.

However, according to legal aid society Honenu, whose attorney Itai Rosin represents Oren, the indictment and the announcement omit a crucial component, namely the fact that the Arab taxi veered off its path in an attempt to ram Oren’s vehicle. According to Rosin, on Aug. 24 his client was riding his ATV on the road leading to Har Bracha, when the taxi, with five Arab workers inside, veered of its path on the opposite side of the road in an attempt to ram his vehicle, forcing him off to the shoulder of the road.

In response, Oren turned around and gave chase after the taxi, catching up with it at the roundabout of the Hawara Village, at which point he pulled out his air gun and shot the car’s rear window. A week ago Saturday night he was arrested and spent the week in a Shabak interrogation facility without contact with a lawyer, even though the indictment does not accuse him of a weapons violation or a hate crime.

Attorney Rosin said in a statement that his client, “a young man who is about to enlist in the IDF, felt threatened as a result of the wild driving of the complainants, and used a toy gun, an air gun. This is not a ‘price tag’ action, my client does not belong to this group or another, and the indictment itself does not accuse him of race- or weapons-related violations. It is inconceivable that my client would be investigated by the Shabak and be kept from seeing his lawyer, a harsh and ongoing violation of his fundamental rights, all of it under the cover of a gag order as if this were a serious security violation. If the same acts had been committed by a boy from Tel Aviv or Herzlia he would certainly not have been interrogated by the Shabak and kept from meeting an attorney.” Rosin added, “I am certain these discrepancies will receive their proper attention during his trial.”

The trial of IDF medic Elor Azaria, who shot dead an Arab terrorist in Hebron last Purim after the latter had already been felled to the ground, was resumed Sunday morning after a month’s break. The defense plans to introduce four new witnesses, most likely local civilians who were present at the scene at the time of the shooting.

The first defense witness to take the stand Sunday morning was Eliyahu Liebman, Hebron’s Security Officer for the past 22 years, who received a commendation from the IDF chief of staff back in 2002 for his role in protecting Jewish worshipers from Arab attackers during the second Intifada. Liebman said the IDF and the media presented an inaccurate picture of reality at the time of the shooting. He accused them of painting a target around Azaria after the fact. He recalled a phone conversation from a person in former defense minister Moshe “Bogie” Ya’alon’s circle who told Liebman that “Bogie told him even the Hebron Security Officer thinks the shooting was invalid. He asked if this was true, I answered it was a complete lie.”

Liebman testified that he had not been questioned by military police following the incident, and that other security officers had been skipped by investigators. He told the court, “I suspect that in this case we weren’t just accidentally not summoned for questioning, and it looks like it had to do with the comments by then Defense Minister Ya’alon following the shooting incident.”

Ya’alon, as well as IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot, openly chastised the defendant well before the investigation of the case had even begun.

Liebman testified that the removal of the terrorist’s body was done in a manner contrary to protocol. “The terrorist was taken away without being checked and contrary to the professional opinion of the sappers. It put in risk anyone who carried him until the moment the sappers checked him and ruled him clear.”

Azaria’s defense team has announced it would present several witnesses the prosecution opted to skip, noting that “the indictment mentions 77 witnesses, out of whom the prosecution chose to hear 22, when it realized that its own witnesses … utterly contradict its version of events.” The defense will endeavor to complete the picture as the prosecution should have done, suggesting it is “convinced once the full picture and not a partial and twisted picture is presented, things will be clarified at the court room.”

The task of the defense is to repair the damage caused by the confrontational testimony given by the defendant Azaria. He was baited by the chief prosecutor and was unable to explain blatant contradictions between different statements he had given regarding the shooting. He introduced a new claim, an accusation that his company commander slapped him after the shooting, an element he had never before mentioned. He also accused his battalion commander of lying but was unable to offer a coherent reason as to why he would do so, other than “fear of the media.”

Still, an unconvincing testimony by the defendant does not necessarily mean the judges would hold it against him should the defense be able to poke holes at the prosecution’s version of events. Much of the debate will circle around whether or not there was a reasonable expectation that the terrorist on the ground, who was severely injured but not fatally so, still posed a lethal danger. In that context, the fact that the terrorist was wearing a heavy coat on a sunny day — a telltale sign of a potential suicide bombing — combined with mismanagement of the potential danger, could advance the defendant’s cause.